Build-A-Backblog - May!

Welcome to the second ‘Build-a-Backlog’ blog and survey. These are all ideas that have come up over the past month.

The aim of this survey is to make our backlog completely transparent, so you can see everything that we are even considering. Your votes will help to highlight updates that we might want to consider more seriously, and discard other updates.

As a note, the Build-A-Backlog survey is not the only factor in determining whether we commission a release: we have data, feedback from you, design intentions and many more, so please do not consider a highly voted update to be a guarantee for launch.

Game Jam Updates:

Achievement Bonanza: more achievements, focused on skilling and Ports – This is a suite of new achievements as designed by Mod Shogun. In all likelihood, the list of achievements would be expanded beyond what was shown in the Game Jam livestreams. Current achievements include Nomad soul capes, Ports title and trio voyages, all resource dungeons, reputation, Seren symbol crafting and all gnome cocktails.

Alchemical onyx new items, including teleport compactor – More uses for alchemical onyx designed by Mod Timbo and Mod Erator, including the ultimate compactor (allows players to compact jewellery teleports into a single pocket slot item) and Grace of the Elves (a skilling amulet that allows you to use the max guild teles from anywhere, gain a crystal chest from skilling and halve drain rates of Seren skilling prayers).

Boss Practice Mode: Vorago and Telos skippable stages – Regardless of your max enrage, this update would give you the ability to practice Telos at various enrages. Using any item on Telos in practice mode will also allow you to skip phases, if you want to practice on particular ones. This can also be done for Vorago. Design is by Mod Shauny.

Clans: Clan Chat muting, Noticeboard revamp, Ava Rework – Mod Shauny’s changes to various clan systems. This includes the ability to individually mute clan members from clan chat; avatar to be obtainable at any rank (courtesy of Ava rework); the number of people in clan chat to be listed; and urns working in citadels, clan noticeboard revamp and more. There are many more changes like these.

Cooking Guild increased functionality and miniquests – A Mod Tomb creation, this will add four tiers to the guild with different level requirements in Cooking. Miniquests unlock each tier of the guild, including adventures to make dough balls, smoked meats, stewing and regional cooking from around the world.

Player-owned House contracts: build rooms for NPCs – This is a new Construction training method created by Mod Ryan, where you receive construction requests or ‘contracts’ from NPCs. You will then travel to the homes of those characters with your own resources, and you will try to satisfy the terms of the contract. These will be separated into easy, medium and hard tasks, with varying Construction XP rewards. You will also earn points by participating in the content, which will allow the purchase of rewards.

Portable hunter swarms: unleash at social areas like a balloon drop – Players can gather hunter creatures, like implings, without gaining their resources. The player can take all of these gathered hunter creatures to a location with perhaps a lot of other players and ‘unleash’ them, for others to gather. You will get a share of the spoils and XP, and it will make any area into a potential hunter area. A design by Mod Mark.

Ripper demon pet – ‘Nipper demon’ gainable from Ripper Demons. It is overridable, shows killcount and is similar to edimmu pet in terms of rarity. Created by Mod Shogun

Shops rework: stocking shops to receive Managing Miscellania-style rewards – Shops largely don’t have a purpose at the moment, as most of their contents can be bought at the Grand Exchange. This Mod Mark update would aim to change that. Shops would request the player’s help, looking for them to contribute shop stock and remove infestations of monsters. Eventually, the player is accepted as a ‘partner’, and can benefit from the shops offline, like Managing Miscellania, as well as send out trade caravans similar to the Bird and the Beast world event.

Unstable resource dungeons: randomised loot caves – These would work in a similar fashion to Uncharted Isle maps. You will receive a map to a location from a skilling drop and, on reaching it, you will choose to enter solo or invite others. The dungeons have random resources inside, and the player has a timer to gather as many resources as they can. A design by Mod Iago and Mod Edge.

Smaller Updates:

Aquarium-style ‘perk’ system for Safecracking and Thieving – On launch of Safecracking, there were some who wanted/expected a perk system that was similar to Aquarium or Memorial to Guthix. We could implement something like that, with hanky points leading to the purchase of Thieving perks. Likely, there would be a range and the player would have to choose between a small selection of them at any one time.

Elite slayer creature improvement: new, separate drop tables – As current, elite mobs are not considered particularly worthwhile to fight, as the rewards do not justify the increased time to chew through the hitpoints. We would like to introduce bespoke drops that can only be gained from elites, to improve the general quality of drops, and perhaps add combat mechanics that are shared across all elite mobs.

Entranan smuggling: new monthly D&D to get items on the island – One of the great emergent joys of the game has been to smuggle items past the Entranan monks at Port Sarim, and then use those items to make weapons and armour. This makes a game of that, with a rather dodgy Entranan monk who will pay handsomely if you manage to bring him certain items. This would be a monthly D&D in the vein of Giant Oyster.

Gameplay replacement for continuous 4-tick auto-attacking – It was recently announced that continuous 4-tick auto-attacking would be removed. This option would be to design and develop a replacement that captures its joyful elements: skilful, fast-reaction mechanics that will deal greater DPS in high-intensity combat encounters.

Halloween Event/Quest – We are definitely going to be making a Halloween event or quest, but this poll option allows us to see how many people want it, giving us context against other potential updates.

Ironman and Group Ironman Guild – While Ironmen cannot trade with each other, we find many of them like to socialise (which is one of the reasons we are planning to create Group Ironman). This update would create a single guild for Ironmen to meet, perhaps with limited training hotspots dedicated to Ironmen.

Max Guild improvements: more functionality, relocation to GE – The Max Guild is relatively light on functionality, and this would add things like challenge check-in to make it more than a place to show off. We would also like to suggest bringing it into the Grand Exchange, bringing people away from Elf City and into a location that makes more sense. If this update polls well, we would begin exploring which elements that players value.

New permanent hiscores: boss times, achievements, Dungeoneering times – Persistent highscores for boss times across all bosses, as well as total achievements and Dungeoneering times (likely solo and 5-person at max complexity and size)

Platinum tokens, raising the cash max stack (no GE functionality) – We would love to add Platinum Tokens to the game in a manner similar to Old School, so that players can store their wealth in something better than spirit shards and then trade them with each other. Ideally, this would include the ability to trade Platinum Tokens on the Grand Exchange, but this requires significant engine work that is reserved for other projects, so will not be part of launch.

PvM Hub and introduction to bossing – We would provide a geographical location in the game (likely with duplicated PvM portals from the Max Guild, if the player has the requirements) where players can gather and form into groups for bossing. The update would also come with a system that prepares players for a career in PvM bossing: things like default setups for going bossing, some limited-time free gear (perhaps daily or weekly) that offer a strong loadout for given bosses, free teleports to those bosses, etc.

Reactivation of Oktoberfest – This would be an activation of Oktoberfest with minimal changes from 2017.

Reactivation of old Halloween events for Halloween – This would be an activation of several older Halloween events including Ghost Stories of Gielinor, Day of the Dead and more. Some discontinued items would be protected, while others would be re-released with their respective content.

Sagas and miniquests added to the quest list – It can be hard for players to find the story content that is not listed on the quest list, yet there is some good stuff out there. This would bring a tab/filter to the Quest List that would show Tales, Sagas and miniquests with the aim of getting more people to experience them.

Wilderness death mechanic rework, to make it less punishing – A project to introduce a less punishing death mechanic. The aim is to preserve the fun and reward of PvP, but to remove the infuriations that put people off from trying it, finding a sweet spot between hardcore PKers and more casual players who would be willing to give it a try.

Larger Updates:

Champions Challenge 2: More challengers – New champions await! Monsters from more recent updates, like Airut, TzHaar and elves, would drop challenge scrolls, allowing players to access a fight with their champion. These would be souped-up versions of those monsters with new mechanics and limitations on what you can bring. We would also likely add in ways for players to earn and increase their own luck at getting these scrolls.

Dragonkin Quest – A quest that follows the events of Sliske’s Endgame, and the new situation that the dragonkin find themselves in. Might contain Robert the Strong, Kerapac, Bob the Cat, King Black Dragon and more.

Fremennik 6th Age quest – A quest that finds a new storyline for the Fremennik in the 6th Age (their story largely ended with Blood Runs Deep). It would likely threaten their status quo and re-open old rifts.

Player-controlled automatons: arena for invention-created battlers – Invention update, with the player creating robot-like creatures using the components and perks that they already have. These automatons are programmed by the player with basic functions, and they are then put in PvM or PvP arenas to duke it out for non-combat XP rewards.

Raising Summoning to 120: more familiars, new way to train (Zarosian summoning, for example) – An increase of Summoning to 120, ensuring that it is brimful with content and refreshed by new mechanics, giving players new things to do beyond 99. That might be Zarosian summoning, which takes the ‘splicing’ style of summoning that Zaros used on nihil and Nex. Players can effectively construct their own familiars by splicing together benefits from the various monsters/elements.

Rework Accuracy and Defence: make combat feel more satisfying – The combat council would like to rework accuracy so that missing isn't so punishing and anti-fun. Possible solutions include replacing misses with reduced damage ‘glancing blows’, or reworking defence to soak damage with accuracy countering it.

Temple Knight quest, taking player to next rank – It’s been some time since the player was able to rise the ranks of the Temple Knights and gain access to new benefits. This quest would give the Temple Knights a new threat to overcome (the Abyss? Revenants?) and a new mission to complete, should they choose to accept it.

Unified activity tracker: bring your objectives onto an overlay on the game-screen – It can be hard to keep track of the objectives you are currently working towards. Few people have a single objective, as they are working towards skill milestones, quests, achievements and more, and these are all listed on independent interfaces. This update would allow multiple objectives to be viewed at-a-glance from the same game screen on a transparent overlay.

Vampyre and Werewolf 6th Age quest – While it hasn’t been long since the 5th Age Vampyre and Myreque series was resolved, the characters are so engaging and the themes so interesting that we can’t help but be enthused about picking them up again. This new series would expand on Morytania and take a deeper look into the lesser explored race of werewolves.

Vampyrium Wild Hunt: Temple Trekking, in competition with vampyres – Players would arrive in a hunting camp in Vampyrium, populated by devolved vampyres from various non-Drakan tribes who are surprisingly welcoming and friendly. This is a skilling update with some similar gameplay elements to Temple Trekking/Burgh de Rott Ramble, but for specific and different skills. Most notably, it would act as a mid-high level Hunter activity or D&D.

Xau-Tak Quest – You may have noticed that Xau-Tak is cropping up more and more. This quest would explore the mystery, rumours and background of Xau-Tak more than we currently have, likely starting a series of quests that will bring you close to its horrifying nature.

Zanaris 6th Age quest – Zanaris and the fairies are fantastic, in our opinion, and haven’t nearly been explored enough. This would give us the chance to travel to Zanaris and explore it and the races on the moon more fully.

Achievement Bonanza: more achievements, focused on skilling and Ports – This is a suite of new achievements as designed by Mod Shogun. In all likelihood, the list of achievements would be expanded beyond what was shown in the Game Jam livestreams. Current achievements include Nomad soul capes, Ports title and trio voyages, all resource dungeons, reputation, Seren symbol crafting and all gnome cocktails.

Now i don't mind more achievements at all. But the ones suggested at game jams were just very silly. Can we get real achievements instead? Making a new pizza/all gnome cocktails/signing 50 times shouldn't be added in my opinion. I don't mind the other achievements though.Road to True Trim

Achievement Bonanza: more achievements, focused on skilling and Ports – This is a suite of new achievements as designed by Mod Shogun. In all likelihood, the list of achievements would be expanded beyond what was shown in the Game Jam livestreams. Current achievements include Nomad soul capes, Ports title and trio voyages, all resource dungeons, reputation, Seren symbol crafting and all gnome cocktails.

Now i don't mind more achievements at all. But the ones suggested at game jams were just very silly. Can we get real achievements instead? Making a new pizza/all gnome cocktails/signing 50 times shouldn't be added in my opinion. I don't mind the other achievements though.

Heya - yes, it would be more than the comedic achievements mentioned at Game Jam. I would be looking for a more comprehensive suite of them.

Mod Osbornesaid: Shops rework: stocking shops to receive Managing Miscellania-style rewards – Shops largely don’t have a purpose at the moment, as most of their contents can be bought at the Grand Exchange. This Mod Mark update would aim to change that. Shops would request the player’s help, looking for them to contribute shop stock and remove infestations of monsters [...]

To me, this sounds too much effort to outweigh the reward. People often use the GE to buy in bulk, where even if shops were in stock, wouldn't supply.

Mod Osbornesaid: Wilderness death mechanic rework, to make it less punishing – A project to introduce a less punishing death mechanic. The aim is to preserve the fun and reward of PvP, but to remove the infuriations that put people off from trying it, finding a sweet spot between hardcore PKers and more casual players who would be willing to give it a try.

Can we please just accept that PvP is a lost cause at this stage? It festers the most toxic community which turns players off immediately.

Mod Osbornesaid: Raising Summoning to 120: more familiars, new way to train (Zarosian summoning, for example) – An increase of Summoning to 120, ensuring that it is brimful with content and refreshed by new mechanics, giving players new things to do beyond 99. That might be Zarosian summoning, which takes the ‘splicing’ style of summoning that Zaros used on nihil and Nex. Players can effectively construct their own familiars by splicing together benefits from the various monsters/elements.

I'm unsure why this is being tabled to be honest. Slayer 120 still feels incredibly bare. Please try to finish the content in a skill before adding more and piling 'unfinished business' even higher.

Other than that, Platinum tokens, Clan related updates, Quests take a big YES from me and i'm exceptionally excited for those updates